Zeus Descends, Hera Rises
by Karihan
Summary: Set during Home, Part 2 What really happened under that tarp in the rain?Spoilers: Through Home Part 2.Disclaimer: not my characters though I love 'em as if they were, and I'm certainly not getting paid.As usual, feel free to send kudos, comments and cho


(Laura)

It is a deeply moving and arresting moment, the stuff of which legends are made.

We all react to the crackle in the brush, vibrating with tension. Some, like Lieutenant Thrace, prepare to defend our lives at any cost. Others, like myself, just try to stay out of the way. I watch over Captain Apollo's shoulder as he sweeps the tent cloth aside—revealing not the Cylon squadron of our fears, but something beyond all hopes and dreams.

Commander William Adama stands there, weapon at the ready, surrounded by the green glow of the foliage. The last Lee or I saw of him, he was in a deep coma in _Galactica's_ sickbay. He stands now looking as if he's never been injured, as if no bullet could ever touch him, no harm ever bring him down. Zeus himself, descended from Olympus, could not possibly inspire more stunned awe than Adama does in that instant.

And when both men lower their weapons and father pulls son into his tearful embrace, no hero escaped from the unbreachable gates of Hades could inspire more relief and joy. I am as sensible to the overwhelming emotion as everyone else present.

But my overriding thought, the one that strikes me the moment I see him and returns when he turns from Apollo to me, is a thought that I'm grateful no chronicler of history or legend will ever record.

_Sweet GODS, but he looks edible in those fatigues!_

The thought never touches my face. I greet him with the respect due to both our positions, and respond to the warm smile on his seamed face with a grave and gentle smile of my own. My deeper inclination to wrap my arms around him and press my face into his shoulder never surfaces.

By now I'm quite skilled at concealing my physical attraction to William Adama. In fact, I'm so good at it that I even fooled myself for some time.

We talk later, underneath the tarp that shields us from repeated rainshowers. The President and the Commander give way to Laura and Bill now, as we use honesty and openness not so much to lay new foundations as to create the bricks and mortar from which they will be made.

So many hidden thoughts come out in our conversation that my remaining lie of omission looms even larger, becoming more and more difficult to ignore. It is hard to be so honest with him and not somehow let him know that I'd rather do much more than talk. I become aware that I am sitting with my arms tightly folded, as if my hands might do something inappropriate if left uncontrolled.

Only when he unlocks them to pick up the book next to him do I realize that Bill has spent our entire conversation with his fingers carefully laced together. I'm not sure what to make of that.

As he hands me the sacred text, Bill pledges his help in finding the Tomb of Athena, but it is too late to continue that journey today. We talk long, continuing our conversation well after our companions have given themselves over to sleep or perimeter guard. The dimming light does nothing to discourage my growing sense of intimacy with him.

He finally suggests that we get what sleep we can before morning. Stretched out a mere foot away from him on the groundcloth, I can feel my secret as an ache inside me. We have done so much today to forge a closer mental and even emotional bond, and I tell my frustrated body it must be content with that.

Mocking my resolution, the sky opens in a torrential downpour. I shiver uncontrollably, not from the increased darkness or the deeper chill in the air, but from the wracking desire to roll over and burrow into the man next to me. I roll instead to turn my back to him, denying the impulse.

It is then that I feel his hand lightly brush my shoulder. The shivering redoubles. My heart sounds louder in my ears than the rain.

The hand vanishes, and for a few seconds I'm left wondering if I imagined the touch. Then his radiating warmth envelops me as he lies down at my back, arms slipping around to pull me close. His fatigue jacket is open, and I can just feel the contours of his chest through my own clothes and his black turtleneck.

Impulse will be denied no longer.

I turn in his embrace, sliding my own arms around his waist, pressing myself as tight against him as I can get. Chests, bellies, my face at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, our legs beginning to tangle ... it's still not close enough.

My control over my hands is loosed, and sure enough they zero in on the black knit covering him, tugging it free of his trousers. He gasps as I stroke his stomach in the process of pushing the shirt up higher. My inner skeptic wails, certain I'm being an idiot, certain he only embraced me because he thought I was cold ...

... and then he rolls me beneath him. One hand brushes first my chin, then my lips to guide him in the darkness, and his mouth takes mine in the deepest, hungriest kiss I have ever experienced. Our tongues stroke each other repeatedly, pausing only as his hands rid me of my borrowed fleece shirt, and I feel a riot of joy shoot through me at the knowledge.

He wants this as much as I do.

(Bill)

It is one of those moments that you store away in memory to replay during the hard times.

I have my _son_ back. The second I set aside the habits of a lifetime to embrace Lee, tears trickling down my face and into my throat at seeing him safe and sound, warm certainty fills me. Even before his arms return my clutch and I hear his small, emotion-choked laugh in my ear, I know I have done the right thing.

We have no illusions that everything is good between us. But for the first time, we see how we can make it so.

It is when Lee and I ease apart slightly, embarrassment overpowered by the sense of rightness, that I see her.

Laura Roslin.

Any objective observer would say she looks like hell. Exhausted and dirty, her hair is frazzled and her eyes have dark circles underneath. Her body is covered by a too-large borrowed sweatshirt.

But I have long since lost any objectivity I ever had when looking at this woman. To me she looks rumpled, approachable and yes, damn sexy. She looks like a woman in desperate need of a warm bath and an extended session of TLC ... preferably at the same time.

I resist my inclination to reach out the arm not currently hugging my son and reel her in for a kiss, but it's a near thing.

"It's good to see you." My voice is hoarse. Let her think my tears caused that.

Our long talk, separate from yet still visible to everyone else, is everything I'd hoped for and worried about on my trip here. As I'd hoped, we take the first steps towards forging a new and better unity between us. Evasion is dispensed with, the bullshit quite thoroughly cut through. As with Lee, the sense is strong that we can build a relationship with integrity.

And as I'd worried, I can't seem to completely stop my mind from considering what I'd like to do if we didn't have an audience.

I move towards Laura only once, to hold out the religious tome she's been using as a guide. When she leans forward to take it, her knee brushes my leg. I am momentarily paralyzed, not so much from the brief touch as from the memory it triggers, the memory of the first lust I ever felt for her.

She'd probably be doubly shocked if she knew, not only that it exists, but how early in our acquaintance it was.

I hated being roped into those give-the-VIP-a-tour things, but the newly-arrived Colonial Secretary of Education was too high up on the political food chain to be ignored, especially by the nearly-retired Commander of a nearly–retired battlestar. As Gaeta and I took her around, I let the Lieutenant do most of the talking. At one point we had to climb a steep ladder to another level, and without thinking, I gestured to her to proceed me.

I realized the depth of my mistake when I was presented with a magnificently curved ass directly at eye level, topping a pair of toned, sleek legs that seemed to go on forever. Caught completely off guard, I was seized by an intense, momentary fantasy of how those legs might feel wrapped around me.

I nearly growled under my breath. This was the _last_ thing I needed. Ruthlessly I gestured for Gaeta to proceed me as well.

Confronted by the same sight, Gaeta swallowed hard before ascending himself. I smiled sardonically. _Sorry, Lieutenant, but better you than me._

I avoided her as much as possible until the decommissioning ceremony. If Secretary Roslin was too high up the food chain to ignore, she was certainly too high up to proposition.

And President Roslin ... was even more so.

But I'm talking to Laura now, not the President. The more I connect with the woman behind the political icon, the more the man in me responds to her. More than anything I wish I could pull her to me right now, to bring a smile to her lips with my own and soothe the fatigue from her body with my hands.

But even if I could, we _do_ have an audience.

We eventually lie down, together-but-separate, to grab as much sleep as a sudden thunderstorm will let us have. Caught up again in that brief first fantasy, I look over at the dim outline that is all I can see of Laura in the storm-dark. I tense when I see that outline shaking.

I shift closer to her and touch her shoulder. I wasn't mistaken. She is trembling, though whether from cold or fear or exhaustion remains to be seen.

I don't think about what I'm doing as I reach up to unfasten my jacket. I lie down behind her, wrapping both jacket and arms around her, letting myself savor her body next to mine for a few brief moments of warmth and comfort.

When she turns toward me, holding even tighter to me than I am to her, both hope and uncertainty stab me. I try one last time to err on the side of restraint. Maybe she is just colder than I thought she was—but then I feel the material of my turtleneck part company with my waistband, her hands slide underneath seeking my skin, and denial is no longer possible.

Neither is restraint.

I pin her beneath my body and find her mouth by touch. When I cover her lips with mine, her response is everything I ever could have asked for. I can barely stop kissing her long enough to rid her of her ridiculous sweatshirt, but when I do, two realizations have me grinning.

One, we have lost our audience. The curtains of driving rain provide a very effective barrier against both sight and sound.

Two ... my fantasies are not one-sided. I'm beginning to suspect they never were.

(Laura, then Bill)

His jacket has fallen by the wayside. With a little assistance from me, his turtleneck quickly follows. I sigh against his mouth as I rub his back, my palms drinking in the feel of him. A low "Mmmmmm" escapes him as he unbuttons my shirt.

"Bill, this is _crazy_. This is a—a teenaged stunt." I don't even try to keep the ripple of excited laughter out of my voice.

His teeth flash in the darkness; his eyes gleam. "Yes, it is." Finished with my buttons, he rolls me partly on my side to unfasten my bra, then strips away both garments. "Your point?"

I moan softly as his hands stroke upwards towards my breasts. "I don't think I have one, particularly ... oh wait, yes I do." I grasp his hands, stilling them just before they reach their goal. "As a _responsible adult_, I wanted to let you know that ... well, that birth control isn't needed in my case."

"Ah." I detect a hint of embarrassed chagrin in that syllable, confirmed by his barely-audible mutter of "I _was_ going to ask ..."

I chuckle and pull him back for another kiss, freeing his hands to finish their journey. I trace the lines of his shoulders and chest, playing with his nipples even as he toys with mine, our sounds of mutual pleasure lost in each other's mouths.

One more brief parting as we cope with shoes and socks, then we each take our time divesting the other of pants and underwear, running hands and lips over thighs and calves, using touch and taste to learn what we cannot see. Once completely naked, we come back together again. The feel of bare skin under our hands and along the full length of our bodies is intoxicating.

I kiss my way down his throat, tasting his pulse point along the way, intending to continue detailed exploration down to his chest and further beyond. He has other ideas, as he rolls me once again onto my back and pins my hands at my shoulders.

"Bill?" I'm confused at the interruption. Doesn't he want me touching him?

"Laura," he sighs into my ear, "I hate to admit this, but I'm sixty-one years old and barely two weeks into recovery from major trauma. My stamina is in short supply right now." He covers my mouth with a hand when I start to stammer an apology, then continues in a desire-roughened voice, dark and rich like wild honey. "I need you to let me take charge for this time. If you do, I promise that you will have your pleasure," ... a lingering kiss ... "and I will have mine," ... another, even longer one ... "and you won't feel like slugging me when I finally do have to pass out and get some rest." I can hear his smile. "Deal?"

I smile myself as his hand falls away. "Well, I certainly can't argue with that logic. Deal." He rewards me with yet another kiss, and I murmur against his lips, "Is there anything you _do_ want me to do?"

His smile flashes again as he shifts down my body. "Just lie back ... and enjoy."

My quiver of anticipation at those words melts into a purr as his mouth reaches my breasts. He is careful to lavish equal attention on each one, licking and suckling and giving nibbling love bites that send sparks through the rest of my body. Sliding one hand between my legs, he caresses the insides of my thighs and gently parts my labia, exploring the heat beyond. When he so-softly strokes my clit, I croon and start rocking into his touch.

As if taking this as a signal, he kisses his way down my stomach, positioning my calves over his shoulders and spreading my legs wide. Teasing me by nipping my thighs and continuing to stroke me with one finger, he gradually works his way to where I desperately want him, nuzzling my sex and stroking his tongue between the swollen lips.

My first cry is soft, but I know I can't take much of this without making some sound that the rain-noise won't cover. I roll my head to one side and take a mouthful of my heavy coat, until now used as a pillow, and give myself over to the feelings he's creating.

He is relentless, his hands holding my thighs firmly in place as I arch into his mouth. His tongue probes deeply, then swirls around my clit, creating a vortex of sensation that comes to a point at that hard nub. As my hip movements grow more frenetic, he slides one finger back inside me, curving it to find and stroke against that tender area on the upper surface of my vagina.

His tongue and lips pay sole attention to my clit, now. My hips buck against him and still he continues, flickering, sucking, delicately biting, the finger inside me continuing its rhythm unabated. I cry out repeatedly, unable to take any more, I am writhing, I am drowning, I am—

_There._

She screams into her coat as her back arches and she clenches repeatedly on my finger. I smile in triumph even as I continue my assault, prolonging her orgasm for as long as I can. Only when her cries stop and she is quivering and gasping for breath do I let up, moving to hold her against me again, kissing away moisture from the corners of her eyes. She clings to me, and I feel both smugness and awe at the sheer intensity of her response.

Her shuddering gradually eases, along with her gasping breath. "Gods, Bill," she finally moans. Her delicate fingers encounter my erection, and I feel her smile against my shoulder. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Not likely," I growl. "I just wanted to wait until you were ready."

Her lips and fingers tell me I need wait no longer, but as I once again move to position myself above her, she presses on my shoulders. "Wait. Should you be doing what amounts to pushups in your condition? Maybe I should be on—"

Some things will never change. I smile and silence her by the most direct means possible. After we both come up for air, I growl in her ear again. "Me in charge, remember? Besides—" I stroke my hands along the soft skin of her thighs. "—I intend to fulfill a little fantasy of mine."

She laughs softly and rolls onto her back at last, pulling me over her. Opening her legs to me once more, she reaches one hand to help guide me to my target in the dark, stroking the head of my cock between tender, puffy lips before pressing me inward.

She is melting and ready for me, but I grit my teeth and take her inch by inch, not wanting to risk hurting her. When I am as deep inside her as I can possibly get, she is moaning again, her hips working against me. I start to thrust, and she slowly brings her legs up to lock around me even as her arms have, completing my fantasy. I arch my body into her embrace; I flex my hips into the silky-strong grip of her thighs.

I can't last long at this, I know I can't. She comes anyway, this time stifling her cries against my neck.

An eternal minute later, when driving myself repeatedly into her sweet heat brings me to the brink and throws me over, she takes my yell into her mouth, sealing my lips to hers even as I seal myself deep inside her.

We lay joined together like that for who knows how long. I selfishly soak up the feeling of being wrapped snugly in her body, but I know that lying like this can't be comfortable for her on the hard ground. I shift most of my weight to my elbows. "The rain's starting to let up."

"Mmmm ..." I hear my own wistful reluctance in her voice. "I suppose we should get dressed."

"I suppose so."

We ease apart and start sorting out our tangled clothes, laughing quietly together over a temporary sock confusion. As she leans against me to pull her own pair on, I tenderly cup one hand against her face. She turns her head, pressing a kiss into my palm. "I'm just glad that next time, we'll be able to see each other."

"Next time?" My heart catches.

She nibbles lightly on each finger, then smiles once more into the palm. "Yes. Next time."

I pull her back for one last lingering kiss before we finish dressing.

Next time. Thank the Gods.

(Kara)

I should be patrolling, but I kneel by the President in the growing pre-dawn light, debating with myself. The Old Man lies nearby, and the fact that he didn't wake at my approach tells me that his wounds and surgery have taken more out of him than he'll normally show. There is a full two feet between them, and the most obvious indications say that these two passed a peaceful-if-damp night sound asleep.

A few small details lead me to suspect differently.

_C'mon, Kara. You know you have to wake her. She'll want to know before everyone else gets up._

I reach out to grasp her shoulder, whispering, "Madam President."

She murmurs and wakes, blinking as she looks up at me. "Lieutenant Thrace? Are we leaving already?"

"Not quite, ma'am, but I thought you should know ..." I chew my lip before continuing. "... your sweatshirt is on inside-out."

She is fully awake in an instant, reflexively glancing down at herself, then over at the Commander. _Oh, yeah, confirmation all right, right there._ She grimaces and starts to fix the problem, her mutter of "Thank you, Lieutenant" muffled by the knit she pulls over her head.

I don't mention that her shirt is mis-buttoned. She's smart enough to figure that one out.

I leave to finish my patrol. When I glance back, I'm relieved to see that she's also smart enough to realize that she needs to wake the Old Man. Anybody seeing the smile of sweet satisfaction on his sleeping face would know right away that someone got thoroughly laid last night.

I grin, even more relieved that I didn't have to tell her that she was wearing the exact same smile.

**Fin**


End file.
